An ongoing review of politics and culture

So here’s the promised follow-up to my previous post. You’ve been waiting with bated breath, haven't you? I know you have.

I myself am waiting with semi-bated breath for Laura Miller’s The Magician’s Book: a Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia — I’ve pre-ordered it from Amazon. I’m looking forward to it first because Miller has written a lot of interesting stuff in the past — this comparison of Narnia and Oz, for instance, and this profile of Philip Pullman — but also because the topic fascinates me: How are we to account for the love we can have for books whose underlying view of the world differs dramatically from our own? Miller is a religious “skeptic” drawn to Lewis’s Narnia, but religious people can have similar responses to books written by skeptics. I find this fascinating, so, as I say, I’m waiting eagerly for the book.

So I was browsing Miller’s website and discovered an “outtake” from The Magician’s Book in which she describes a visit to Wheaton College, where I teach, and the collection of Lewis manuscripts and documents at the Wade Center. I always expect condescension from visitors to Wheaton, and Miller does not disappoint: indeed, the condescension does not drip but rather freely flows, like the righteousness envisioned by the Hebrew prophets. The campus “badly . . . wants to look like Connecticut,” “a decent cup of coffee was astonishingly hard to come by,” and there are no falafel stands whatsoever. (Yes, Miller really does comment on the absence of falafel stands on campus.)

The chief point of the essay (or “outtake”) is this: “I had expected to walloped by a fervently Christian atmosphere at the Wade Center. Instead, what impressed itself most firmly was the rampant Anglophilia.” But why had Miller expected to be so walloped? Because, she says, she came to Wheaton aware that it is “a neo-evangelist institution” populated by “fanatics who believe that the world is 6000 years old, the Second Coming is imminent and the proper place for women is in the home,” “a lot of [whom] would like to see my unrepentant gay friends tossed into reeducation camps, or worse.”

Well. First, “neo-evangelist” is a word of Miller’s coinage with no discernible meaning. Second, very few people around here — none among the faculty — think the world is 6000 years old. (People in our science classes are taught that it’s about 15 billion years old.) Third, the “Left Behind” eschatology is almost completely unknown on this campus. (People in our Bible and theology classes are taught that such notions are built on very poor exegesis indeed.) Fourth, — oh, forget it. She’s right about the falafel stands, though. Also about the Anglophilia. Not so much about the coffee, although I’d have to find out what she thinks good coffee is to be sure.

So this is where my previous post comes in. I understand why Miller, like millions of other Americans, finds what she knows, or thinks she knows, of evangelicalism unattractive. I understand why she can't be bothered to find out more about it, to figure out what the varieties of evangelicalism are and what various evangelicals believe. As I said earlier, we all decide to remain in ignorance about some things; we all have to.

But about what we don’t know, what we can't be bothered to find out, we shouldn't offer opinions — especially not confident ones, and especially not publicly. That’s all I’m saying.

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Well, duh. At any civilized college environment there’re no felafel stands. People sell good felafel out of trucks.

I first came across Wheaton on the debate circuit in the early 1990s. I don’t think anyone who met those students would have the same condescension toward the college. In retrospect, I clearly should’ve brought up falafel more in rounds against them.

New Robert Ludlum novel: The Falafel Deficiency. In the climactic scene, Jason Bourne (having converted to evangelical Christianity) drives an explosives-laden falafel truck across a college campus dedicated to Godless Secular Humanism.

Alan, after reading the articles you linked, I have realized that you are very tolerant indeed.

Not only did Miller put down Wheaton, she also wrote: “the Christian elements in Lewis’ work repel interesting critics and scholars — some of whom are still embarrassed about how much they liked his books as kids. (Lewis scholarship exists, but it’s a hagiographic wasteland roamed by worshipful, third-rate Christian academics who see his work as something close to divine revelation.)”

I was raised as an Evangelical Christian and it was a truly hellish experience that scars me to this day. The evangelicalism that I was exposed to was rife with anti-intellectualism and terribly prejudiced towards any religious or political view different from my congregation’s own. In addition, this was/is mainstream Evangelicalism.

That being said, as an ironist I acknowledge the contingency of my experience. In other words, I understand that simply because this was my experience does not me it everyone’s experience nor does it mean that I use my experience as a sole basis for generalizing about all evangelicals.

Over time, I have met some wonderful people who also happen to be evangelical Christians who are part of congregations that are decent, sane, and intellectually wholesome places. This leads me to the provisional conclusion that there are certain strands of evangelicalism that are practiced in certain ways, which lead to the terrible experiences that I had.

What strand is, is open to debate, though I suspect the issue begins and ends with the political nature of Evangelical Christianity and how politicization leads to power and then corruption.

“Second, very few people around here — none among the faculty — think the world is 6000 years old. (People in our science classes are taught that it’s about 15 billion years old.) Third, the “Left Behind” eschatology is almost completely unknown on this campus. (People in our Bible and theology classes are taught that such notions are built on very poor exegesis indeed.)”

The problem is that such moderate evangelicals have pretty much stayed under the radar and let the fundamentalists present the public face of evangelical Christianity. I have an atheist friend who was very impressed with Lewis’ The Great Divorce because it seemed to him a more plausible view of the afterlife than the Left Behind books his grandmother crammed down his throat. But few secularists read The Great Divorce, and their view of Christian eschatology is shaped largely by the loudly public Left Behind crowd.